Surgical cast

Surgical cast

A surgical cast is a device used to restrain a limb from moving to facilitate bone healing, similar to a splint. This is usually done by encasing the extremity in a hard substance.

Plaster of Paris has been used since 1852 when Mattijsen, a military surgeon, made the first plaster bandage in the Netherlands. Before plaster of Paris, gypsum powder had been used in Egypt and by the Turkish empire in Bassora many years before Mattijsen used the powder to stabilise fractures. They had placed the fractured leg in a box and poured a powder-water mix over the extremity - The British consul, William Eton had reported that to Europe, although it was some time before it was commonly used.

Because plaster is heavy and takes up to 2 days to fully cure, today casts are made of synthetic materials such as fiberglass or thermoplastic.

External links

* http://www.castliner.com/hist.html


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Surgical planning — The surgical planning is the preoperative method of pre visualising a surgical intervention, in order to predefine the surgical steps and furthermore the bone segment navigation in the context of computer assisted surgery.The surgical planning is …   Wikipedia

  • cast — castable, adj. castability, n. /kast, kahst/, v., cast, casting, n., adj. v.t. 1. to throw or hurl; fling: The gambler cast the dice. 2. to throw off or away: He cast the advertisement in the wastebasket. 3. to direct (the eye, a glance, etc.),… …   Universalium

  • cast — [[t]kæst, kɑst[/t]] v. cast, cast•ing, n. 1) to throw or hurl; fling: to cast dice; to cast aside the newspaper[/ex] 2) to direct (the eye, a glance, etc.) 3) to cause to fall; put or send forth: to cast a soft light; to cast a spell; to cast… …   From formal English to slang

  • cast — [c]/kast / (say kahst) verb (cast, casting) –verb (t) 1. to throw; fling; hurl (away, off, out, etc.) 2. to throw off or away. 3. to direct (the eye, a glance, etc.) 4. to cause (light, etc.) to fall upon something or in a certain direction. 5.… …  

  • cast — I (New American Roget s College Thesaurus) v. t. throw, toss, heave, hurl, sling, fling; shed; mold; plan, compute. See ejection, form, propulsion. n. appearance, aspect, air; company, actors, dramatis personae; casting, copy, mold, sculpture.… …   English dictionary for students

  • Surgical Spirit — infobox television show name = Surgical Spirit caption = genre = Sitcom runtime = 30 minutes creator = Peter Learmouth producer = Granada Television starring = Nichola McAuliffe Duncan Preston Marji Campi David Conville Emlyn Prince Suzette… …   Wikipedia

  • Orthopedic cast — Arm cast from a wrist fracture An orange short arm cast with a fiber …   Wikipedia

  • Mobile Army Surgical Hospital — U.S. Army Soldiers and Dilmurod local national interpreter train local Uzbek anesthesi …   Wikipedia

  • Characters of Holby City — The Holby City hospital set, at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. Holby City is a British medical drama television series that premiered on 12 January 1999 on BBC One. The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal You …   Wikipedia

  • Former characters in Holby City — The following characters formerly appeared regularly on the British BBC television drama, Holby City , as hospital staff.cite web coauthors = Cheryl Senior Peter Lines url = http://www.holby.tv/db/index.php?casualty holbycity past characters… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”